There is a simple, inexpensive and effective means to prevent the
use of GHB or other pharmaceuticals for date-rape purposes. By
law, you could mandate that all GHB, GBL, 1,4-butanediol, tranquilizers
and sedatives be formulated with Bitrex (denatonium benzoate), an
extremely bitter substance which is overpowering to human taste buds
in mere parts per million concentrations.

Any drink or food to which a Bitrex-containing substance had been
surreptitiously added would be immediately detected, even if strongly
diluted, and even if mixed into naturally bitter grapefruit juice. Yet
Bitrex inside of pills and capsules would not be tasted at all. It
would therefore not interfere with legitimate uses of prescribed
pharmaceuticals.

Bitrex is extremely inexpensive and its toxicity is very low at the
extreme dilutions that would be sufficient to accomplish this end.

Traces of Bitrex would not interfere with the vast majority of
industrial applications of any GHB analog. So the use of Bitrex-denatured
substances in industrial, commercial and retail products would not
have to be restricted in any way. Those rare businesses that might
require undenatured GBL, for examples, the computer or drug-manufacturing
industries, could register with the state for permission to use a
listed substance. Since this would be rare, instead of common as
with SB 305, the economic burden to Alabama businesses (and the state
economy) would be minimized.

Those rare patients who have some kind of adverse reaction to denatured
medications can have undenatured medications prescribed by their physicians
and compounded by Alabama pharmacists.

Please consider this alternative approach. I believe it bypasses
all (or nearly all) of the objections to SB 305 (both old and new)
that have been raised so far.